Every story is a product.

Every story is a product.

Live by the stories you tell, and tell those genuinely worthy of it.?

For over two decades as a journalist across newsrooms, from print newspaper to blog, I have come to realize that the best way to describe journalistic stories is to think of them as a product.?

Before I get into the details of "a story as a product," let me illustrate the context deeper.?

Let's look at how we have been describing stories and, in turn, those telling them over the past few decades.?

Slave of the format

Long-form stories, multimedia narratives, interactive, computational, and even investigative journalism typically describe storytelling and the journalists. These are conventional frames that help us define and structure our writing and content according to the format.?

It all began perhaps when we started calling out print journalists from online journalists. At its core, the craft of journalism had not died or changed too much; it was just the tools and the delivery mechanisms that were evolving (and they continue to). But unfortunately, the terminology continues to describe the roles, primarily format-led.?

It's not just the format; it's also the buyer persona of newsrooms.?

Depending on where we work, full-time and part-time, we pitch these stories to an editor who is the first consumer of an idea or story.?

From an editor as the first consumer to algorithms, platforms, subscribers, and advertisers, the fate of a story travels through different approval points. As journalists, we are always thinking about one or all of the above while exploring stories, crafting them so they pass through the valley of death.?

Lesson#1

Formats will come and go and evolve, but it's the core story as a product that will travel through all disruptions. The form is an outcome of the story, not the other way round.?

Question:?How will you tell the story in the metaverse? What are the building blocks?

Meet the new story merchants

What happens next?

In the new world order of journalism, at least the way I see it, a newspaper editor is perhaps one among the many potential buyers of a story that matters. Everyone from a literary agent, a movie producer, publisher, and even civil society, are among the hungry buyers of narratives that matter.?

And the roles of engagement and community journalism, along with the conventional reporting and interviewing skills, become even more critical.

Lesson#2?

It's not enough to discover a great story, report it journalistically, and live wishfully thinking you have played a role in creating impact through your stories. Helping narratives that matter travel through the new network of buyers and across different formats is equally essential.

Question:?How do you keep the public-spirited journalism intact while navigating a new set of buyers for the stories??

Stories as a public good

After over two decades in journalism, one of my biggest lessons as a media entrepreneur and full-time journalist has been that stories are best served as public goods.?

I believe that journalism is similar to building roads, creating new infrastructure and bridging the gap between light and dark. Stories that matter are the building blocks of sensemaking and bring a relentless sense of enquiry.?

With?FactorDaily, we decided to separate livelihoods from the core mission of "raising public consciousness around issues at the intersection of science, technology, and society."

And it's been liberating, saying the least.?

Lesson#3

If journalism is the craft you believe defines your life and work, this freedom is the best thing you can achieve. Since we took this?renewed path from early last year in 2021, FactorDaily has signed a contract with a producer to turn two of our stories into movies and documentaries. In addition, another of our deep narratives becomes a book.?

Question:?How do you wear the multiple hats of a journalist, a creator, a negotiator and still keep the mission and the sanity?

If you have read this far, it's time to dive deeper into the idea of crafting stories as products.?

The story as a product

What is a product?

Some of the great operators and thinkers of our times have answered this question. From Paul Graham to Deep Nishar and even Naval Ravikant. While they are all useful guidance for embracing product thinking, context is the key.?

A product must solve a problem for a user (or a consumer), create enough value for it to be sustainable, and perhaps help create a habit for meaningful impact.?

How can we apply this product lens to a story?

Instead of a force-fitting product definition to the craft of storytelling and journalism, it makes sense to rearrange the building blocks and even borrow fresh lego pieces.?

The magic happens at the intersection of a great story idea that must travel to audiences who need it, technology and design thinking that helps it engage, and finally, a community that associates deeply with the narrative.?

From product-led growth or PLG, founders and product builders are now talking about community-led growth. But, of course, this additionally applies to any product thinking, including journalism. That is why we have seen newsrooms such as The Atlantic, The New York Times, and several others introduce new media roles, including engagement journalism and community journalism.?

Writing a column or contributing a story for a newspaper or magazine is a good way for prototyping a story product. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trivializing the value of public-spirited journalism and commentaries on mainstream media platforms. I'm only emphasizing the value of some of those ideas as a product, eventually.?

Lesson#4

Stories aren't just words or video clips; they are lines of codes, frames of engaging design and well-crafted products. The new allies are software developers, designers, product managers and deep domain researchers.?

For stories to be journalistic products, they need a product-mission-fit.?

Question:?How much do you need to learn on your own about coding, design and product? How can you build a network of professionals across these capabilities??

Failure is not an option.

When I first heard about?The Puck News?last year, a new-age media startup that bets on individual star journalists who are products themselves, I started asking many questions.

Why's everything so gloomy in the media scene??

What's broken–is it the business model or the format?

Entrepreneurs who struggle the most in the startup world cannot separate themselves from their startup ideas. For them, failure of an idea equals their failure as individuals. However, some of the most innovative entrepreneurs I have known are dispassionate when judging their startups' outcomes. They may fail with their products and startups, but they can also keep attempting newer bets without being too harsh on themselves.?

I am now more convinced that there's nothing wrong with journalism, at least for the journalists who keep telling great stories that matter.?

We must separate ourselves from the publishing platforms, including old and the new world publishers, and treat everything as a distribution channel.?

The failure of media companies to build sustainable revenue streams and compete rigorously with social and digital platforms is because they have ignored looking at their core product, great stories, as products over the years.?

The ones living through business model disruptions are investing in their products well. From The New York Times to Bloomberg, The Financial Times,?The Marshall Project?and even upstarts such as?Puck?and Julia Angwin at?The Markup–they are all investing sleeplessly in shaping their stories as products.?

Lesson #5

It's about time; we, career journalists, look at ourselves and everything we do through the product thinking lens.?

Question: How can you craft story products as an individual creator? Is it better to align with a network or a new-age platform??

I now want to research deeper and learn how journalists and media can focus on fewer but deeper story projects that can be licensed for different outcomes and sustainable revenues.?

Please reach out to me if you have any thoughts and ideas about crafting stories as products.?

Additional listening:?Last year, I had this conversation explaining the FactorDaily mission and my lessons from the journey so far with?Alan Soon?and?Rishad Patel?of Splice Media.?

Corrections:?Corrected Splice Media’s name. Apologies.